Communication Breakdown Led to Fatal Raid

Published 8:00 pm, Thursday, May 29, 2003

Associated Press Writer

Police officers failed to communicate properly before carrying out a botched raid on an apartment that left a 57-year-old woman dead, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Friday.

Alberta Spruill went into cardiac arrest after the May 16 raid, during which officers broke down her door, threw a flash grenade and handcuffed her. A police informant wrongly identified her Harlem apartment as one used by an armed drug dealer to stash cocaine and heroin.

An internal department report released Friday says police did not conduct surveillance on Spruill's apartment to verify the informant's tip.

The man suspected of being a drug dealer had been arrested four days earlier on an assault warrant, the report said. But precinct officers who initiated the raid did not tell that to the elite squad that was first through the door.

Also, approval was not given by a high-ranking commander in the elite Emergency Service Unit to detonate a flash grenade, the report said.

Kelly said the department is revamping its policies to place responsibility for approving search warrants higher up the chain of command.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologized for Spruill's death. Her family notified the city it intends to sue.

The city medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide, saying Spruill's heart disease was aggravated by the raid. But a city official said the office was not making any judgment that the police acted improperly or that their conduct was unlawful.